This is a story set in Malta and Europe in the near future. In the form of a letter from a mother to her daughter Maddy, it shows a family trying to navigate the crisis in the region caused by a rapidly warming climate.
See previous chapters in the story and read a note by the story's author.
As the money started to dry up, the government tried to put a brave face on things.
It tried to borrow on the international markets, but we weren’t the only country with serious issues. After all the trouble with Greece, Cyprus and Italy in previous years, international lenders had long ago stopped assuming that EU membership meant a guarantee of bailouts and loan repayments.
They could smell the country’s desperation from miles away, and they couldn’t see how we could raise the money to pay any new loans back. They either flat out refused to lend, tried to charge ruinous interest rates, or insisted on eye-wateringly high amounts of collateral.
Too late, the government swallowed its pride and asked the EU for a bailout; but again, through bitter experience, the EU had become wary of trying to artificially prop up countries that were broke. And Malta, along with Poland and Hungary, had lost a lot of ground within the EU because of longstanding governance issues – the store of goodwill that it might ordinarily have expected to draw on as a member state had run dry a long time before.
Push came to shove in October ’29 when the country saw power cuts, and then water cuts, for four straight days.
Government said it was just minor damage to one of the interconnector cables that linked the local power grid to the European one in Sicily. But the word soon spread that they were running the national power station at the lowest possible capacity to conserve precious, expensive fuel, and this had caused some fuse to trip.
As the water ran dry, people panicked again.
There was another rush on petrol stations and supermarkets. Photo: Shutterstock.comThere was another rush on petrol stations and supermarkets, and this time it got very serious, very fast.
Many people had clearly been preparing for this moment, with more guns than the first time around, and not just hunting shotguns this time either. They acquired Balaclavas, camouflage fatigues, jumbo carrier bags to transport the loot. Some looters targeted jewellery shops, one organised gang broke into a huge chain supermarket’s distribution hub, followed by a mob of many hundreds. A few far-sighted people started climbing onto roofs and stealing solar panels. They had already worked out that in a country that was breaking down fast, being able to generate your own energy would be a massive advantage.
Things got even worse when racial tensions became inflamed
In those early days, what remained of the police and army were still trying to control things. As badly trained as they had always been, they lost control of a situation where they were rushed by a mob near the old Opera House in Valletta. They again opened fire, apparently injuring a number of people.
Now, besides fear and desperation, there was real anger on the streets, and since much of it was directed at the police and army, the already high desertion rate exploded once again.
Things got even worse when racial tensions became inflamed. A few African people were attacked and killed in Marsa, and rumours flew around that the migrants were ganging up and attacking the Maltese in retaliation. On the third day of the troubles there was a mass breakout at the largest detention camp after a protest was put down by force. The migrants overran the armed forces detachments that were supposed to be guarding them and armed themselves with everything from small arms to automatic weapons and army jeeps.
They dug themselves in at Ħal Far and were quickly joined by countless others who no longer felt safe in the rest of the island.
So, at that point you had no real recognised or functioning government, compromised or deserting security forces, free looting all over the island, and a massive group of scared, hungry and armed migrants in Ħal Far.
Most people were sheltering in their homes, wondering, terrified, what they would do once their food and water ran out.
Part five of We are not angry enough will appear on Wednesday, January 26. See previous chapters in the story and read a note by the story's author.